On October 19, 1977, South Africa's apartheid authorities banned The World newspaper, along with Weekend World. The government also detained scores of activists and outlawed 17 anti-apartheid groups. The day was branded - “Black Wednesday”. Finally post 1994, the day was renamed and re-imagined as a “National Day of Media Freedom”.
In the spirit of this day, the SOS Coalition calls on the Ministry and Department of Communications to move swiftly ahead on its broadcasting policy review process, as announced last year November and again on 2 September 2011. We need new citizen-centred and citizen-focused broadcasting laws.
The Coalition calls on all organisations, movements, NGOS, CBOS and members of the public committed to the creation of a broadcasting landscape dedicated to the production of quality, diverse, citizen-orientated public programming to make a concrete contribution to our National Day of Media Freedom by signing onto our broadcasting vision on: www.supportpublicbroadcasting.co.za.
The SOS Coalition believes our new broadcasting landscape should ensure the following:
- Universal access
- Public programming on our SABC and community stations dedicated to the principles of credibility, reliability, variety and balance
- Public programming ensuring a maximum diversity of views particularly those traditionally marginalised by the mainstream commercial media.
- Significant local content
- New accountability mechanisms for the SABC to ensure that programming is rooted and accountable to the needs of citizens.
- The implementation of the SABC’s editorial policies to ensure the SABC “speaks truth to power”, whether it is state or commercial.
- The protection of SABC and community journalists from all vested interests be they state or commercial
- The introduction of a new legal structure for the SABC to ensure its public value and independence is safeguarded by our Constitution
- Maximum transparency and public participation in the selection of the SABC board
- Clarification of the roles and responsibilities of the SABC’s oversight and management structures.
- Long-term, assured public funding to ensure the SABC and community broadcasters fulfil their public service mandate
The SOS Coalition represents a number of trade unions including COSATU, COSATU affiliates CWU and CWUSA, FEDUSA, BEMAWU and MWASA; independent film and TV production sector organisations including the South African Screen Federation (SASFED); and a host of NGOs and CBOs including the Freedom of Expression Institute (FXI), Media Monitoring Africa (MMA), and the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA-SA); as well as a number of academics and freedom of expression activists.